Alone
by The Silver Phoenix
Summary: Everyone needs friends. Even superheroes. Especially superheroes. Robin/Starfire friendship


**A/N: **_Well, it's me again. Haven't written fanfiction in AGES but it's good to be back. Anyway, this time I felt like writing something slightly different, so this fanfic isn't romance-centric; instead it explores the sometimes-forgotten part of Robin and Starfire's relationship: friendship._

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Alone

By **The Silver Phoenix**

**Summary: **Everyone needs friends. Even superheroes. Especially superheroes.

**Disclaimer: **Teen Titans are the property of DC Comics.

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An ebony-haired boy sits in the darkness, shadows dancing across his accentuated features.

He is alone.

The life he leads is inevitably one of solitude, and though he is used to it now, things were different before. He had a family and an enviable life in the circus. Then fate intervened, leaving him the victim, and it was then that he chose the path he walks now, choosing to numb the pain of his loss with the rage of revenge, like battling fire with fire. If you play with fire, you'll only get burnt_._ _Let it burn_, he thought, allowing the flames to consume his broken heart, _let it burn away the pain_. So he swore to become the protector, saving others from the pain that he had endured. He sharpened his mind and trained his body in swiftness and agility, ready to assume a defensive stance or launch a lightning attack, all in the blink of an eye. He fights for justice and few do it better than he can, for he learned his trade from the Dark Knight himself.

But in the dim half-light now, he is young and vulnerable, a frail bird with clipped wings. The wall he has built around himself crumbles and the boy hidden behind the façade emerges, tentative and scared, concealing bitter blue tears behind an empty white mask. He is a child deprived too soon of childhood, a boy in shoes too large, desperate to fill in a man's footsteps.

For a moment, he is not Robin, the perfect, faultless superhero idolised by many. For a moment, he is just a boy; a boy with flaws like everyone else, a boy who makes mistakes like everyone else, a boy who stumbles and falls like everyone else.

For a fleeting moment, he is human, lonely and lost, waiting for someone to come save _him_. Waiting for the friend he never had.

Then the moment is gone, and the boy is engulfed in the shadows of the man he has become. And so he sits alone in the darkness, the night his only friend, the silence his sole companion.

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A girl with a cascade of crimson hair sits on a rooftop, her long legs dangling off the edge, the myriad stars in the inky sky overhead mirrored in her wide emerald eyes.

She is alone.

She is a warrior, strong and brave, her skills learned from the finest masters in the universe. But loneliness... that is her unspoken fear. The galaxies above shine with the blinding blaze of a million fiery suns, yet she does not belong there now any more than she belongs here. She is an alien on a strange planet and an outcast from her own world, sold to buy a fragile peace at the price of freedom. She is the one who must think of all others before herself, for that is her duty to her people. Though not a life she has willingly chosen, or one she could ever cherish, it is one she has ultimately learned to accept.

Sometimes, though, she wishes things were different. Sometimes she wishes she were one of them—any one of the ordinary people whose lives she saves every day—so that she can laugh when she truly means it, and cry when her heart bleeds without hiding regrets behind a smile.

Just for a moment, she escapes the golden chains that bind her life, and thinks of her team-mates, for they are the closest she has ever had to a family. How ironic it is that they are a motley band of outsiders estranged from their own societies, as if thrown together by the gods for a cruel joke: the son of the bat, the cyborg, the changeling, the half-demon and the alien. They have every reason to doubt and suspect each other, yet they have learned to trust. They were the ones who took her in, despite knowing nothing about her, despite her being a slave of the Citadel, an escaped fugitive. As a show of gratitude, she has taken to addressing them as 'friends' and though they do not object, she longs to know if they have fully accepted her offer of companionship.

For a brief moment, she is no longer a royal princess, but a lonely girl. A lonely girl who dreams of hearing others call _her,_ 'friend'.

Then the silence is broken. The door to the roof swings open and a pool of warm light spills out, throwing a shadow across the concrete floor. A lone figure stands silhouetted in the open doorway. The girl smiles as she recognises the boy's familiar profile: unruly hair and a billowing cape.

"Hey, Star." She can feel her heart swell at the use of her nickname. No one ever called her that before, but she likes it. It makes her feel special.

"Greetings, friend Robin." Oh, how she loves to say that word. _Friend._ What a glorious sound it makes! She repeats it a thousand times to herself, in her mind.

And though she cannot see it, the boy, too, allows himself a rare smile. _Friend. _

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Two silent figures, a boy and a girl, sit side by side on the rooftop of a giant T-shaped tower, watching silvery waves crash onto jagged black rocks below. The city lights behind them twinkle, warm and golden and inviting.

And yet, they are alone.

He needs someone to save him. She dreams of friendship.

He came to the rooftop to let the night air soothe him, and instead he found her. She came here to feel the sea breeze play with her hair, and to feel closer to the world she wishes she were a part of. Instead, she found him.

She is the friend he never had, and he is the friend she has dreamed of for so long.

Bathed in the soft glow of the moon, the world is transformed into a tranquil, surreal place. The muted light lends everything an illusion of simplicity and strips away all pretences. For a moment, he is not Robin, she is not Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran and they are not superheroes.

For a moment, he is just a boy and she is just a girl. For a moment in this midnight world, they can break free of their forced identities. For a moment, in this small, quiet corner of the universe, in this silent sanctuary, they can just be themselves: a boy and a girl... two friends... alone... together.

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**A/N: **_In case anyone was wondering, this fanfic takes place at the beginning of their friendship, so sort of around the same time as the episode 'Sisters'_—_which, by the way, was the episode that first started me off as a Robin/Starfire 'shipper :)_

_Anyway, have a super awesome Christmas and a wonderfully fantabulous New Year, everyone! Don't forget to review; remember, comments and constructive criticism are always welcome! :)_

_~The Silver Phoenix_


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